


Any Day Now

by dearheartdont



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-06-19
Packaged: 2018-02-05 06:31:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1808758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearheartdont/pseuds/dearheartdont
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kieren and Rick. Before everything turned to shit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Any Day Now

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Any Day Now 来日方长](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1935450) by [llletusw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/llletusw/pseuds/llletusw)



> Unbetaed. Warning for a mention of homophobic bullying. 
> 
> Accompanying fanmix can be found [here](http://8tracks.com/couragedearheart/any-day-now).

He wakes to an irregular pattering against his window and a muffled voice calling “Ren!”

Kieren forces himself out of bed, and peeks through the curtains. There’s a figure bent over the flowerbed. Rick’s chucking stones at his window past midnight on a Friday. Of course. He undoes the window latch and pokes his face out just as Rick launches a fresh handful. His aim is off and most of it hits the pebbledash. He must be drunk.

“Rick,” Kieren hisses.

“Was starting to think I was aiming at the wrong window.” Rick's voice is too loud, slurred and sibilant.

“Keep it down. You’ll wake my parents up.”

“You coming out to play or not, Ren?”

“Give us a minute.” He’s awake now and it’s not as if he’s got anything better to do.

Kieren picks up a pair of jeans from the floor and shoves his sockless feet into a pair of trainers. He roots around in the wardrobe for a jumper to put over his tee-shirt, then a jacket. It may be spring, but it’ll still be freezing out there. He creeps down the hallway, careful to miss the creaky floorboard outside Jem’s room. Kieren pulls the front door shut as carefully as he can, and turns around. He can’t see Rick anywhere. 

Then, suddenly, hands grab his shoulders.

“Knobhead!” Kieren says as he turns and pushes Rick backwards. Rick stumbles a little but keeps hold of Kieren’s arms.

“Shh. Who’s being loud now?” Rick tuts. “Deserved it, you took fuckin’ ages.”

Rick’s hands slide down Kieren’s arms and then tug at his cuffs like an excited child. The night is cool, a sharp breeze rattling the hedges. Despite that, Kieren wishes he wasn’t wearing so many layers, so he could feel Rick’s hands on his skin. Close as they are, he can smell the booze and cigarettes as Rick’s breath huffs across his cheek. Rick touches him too much, casual and proprietary. People notice. And Kieren’s body is just waiting to betray him with every arm slung around his shoulders that he leans into.

Kieren wrinkles his nose. “You’ve got proper meth breath, what have you been drinking?”

Rick steps back, cups a hand in front of his mouth and blows into it. “S’not that bad,” he says. Then, to answer Kieren’s question: “Vodka, Special Brew, some rank stuff Chris’s dad brought back off holiday. Saved summat for you.” 

Rick brandishes a plastic bag at Kieren like some kind of rare prize. Kieren supposes it is: the new man at the off-licence IDs everyone, even his Mum once, although that may have been an attempt at flirting. Kieren looks into the bag, and sees four cans of Tennents Super and a half empty vodka bottle.

“Thanks. You really know what I like.”

Rick grins like he doesn’t even hear the sarcasm. “Didn’t want you to feel left out, like.”

“I told you, I didn’t want to go anyway, even if I had been invited,” Kieren says. It’s mostly true. He could have gone, tagged along with Rick, ‘cause no one would refuse Rick’s presence even if it meant putting up with his. He would have spent most of the time in the back garden to avoid dirty looks, and made an excuse to leave early. Better just to stay home and practice his sketching. 

He sometimes wishes he was part of it, that all he cared about was what girl he could get off with before the end of the night, or how many cans he could knock back before he puked behind Chris’s mum’s hydrangeas. Rick is popular. He has an easy likability that Kieren’s never been able to grasp. Kieren’s parents get told what good manners their son has, how well-spoken he is, but no-one has ever clapped him round the shoulders and led him into the Legion for a sneaky pint like they do with Rick. The most acknowledgment Kieren gets is a look of disbelief that Rick would seek out Kieren’s company.

“It was boring without you. Chris and that lot don’t know what they’re missing. You just need to learn to take a joke, Ren. They’re harmless.”

Chris called Kieren a fuckin’ bender in Year 10, then stole his sketchbook and dropped it in a puddle. He’s not harmless, Kieren wants to say, he’s a vicious little shit. He pinches his mouth shut instead, raises an eyebrow.

“C’mon, let’s go to the playground,” Rick says.

“Drinking tramp juice on a kid’s playground, classy.”

“Don’t act like you don’t want a push on the swings.”

Rick strides off down the road, slight sway in his walk. He doesn’t look behind him to see if Kieren is following.

Kieren sighs, and breaks into a jog to catch up.

 

Rick has a high flush across his cheeks, but he’s shivering in just his Ben Sherman shirt. He shifts slightly, back and forth, making the swing chains creak. The playground is dark, sodium streetlights casting shadows and tinting everything yellow.

“Aren’t you freezing?” Kieren says.

“Nah, I’m alright. Beer jacket’s just wearing off, that’s all.”

Kieren shrugs off his jacket and shoves it into Rick’s hands anyway.

Rick pulls it on. It’s too tight across his chest and he can only zip it half way. It should look ridiculous. It should, but instead it emphasises the strength in Rick’s arms, the broadness of his shoulders. Rick is strong and solid in a way Kieren never will be. He does judo, played footie at school, and not in the half-hearted way Kieren played. For Kieren, passing the ball was just to get it away from him, rather than with any intention of helping his team score. 

When Rick plays football he does so with a clenched jaw, bright intent in his eyes. The last time Kieren went to watch Rick play was for the next town over’s under-17s team. What he remembers most is Rick’s dad screaming at the ref, and Rick’s hunched shoulders.

“Smells like you,” Rick says, face ducking into his shoulder to sniff the fabric of Kieren’s jacket. 

“If it’s so offensive to your delicate nose, give it back.”

Rick shakes his head and swings out of Kieren’s reach.

“And what do I smell like?”

“Paint, Lynx deodorant. S’good.” Rick smiles and it’s as devastating as ever. There’s a fondness that flits across Rick’s face sometimes when he looks at Kieren. He’s tried to catch it over and over in pencils and paint, but Kieren can never get it quite right. He keeps trying though.

“What happened to Vicky, then?”

“Drank too much sass. Last I saw she was puking in Chris’s back yard.”

“How’s it going with her?” It’s like sticking pins under Kieren’s nails to ask, but he has to know. 

“I chucked her tonight. She was boring. We never really did anything except …” Rick pauses as he lights up a cigarette, quick burst of warm light across his face from the lighter’s flame. “Well, you know.”

The silence stretches because Kieren doesn’t, not really. He takes a swig out of his half empty can, and then fiddles with the ring pull to avoid Rick’s eyes. He’s never really done anything, never really wanted to with anyone but Rick.

“So, you having a save on this, or not?” Rick asks. 

Kieren knows a distraction tactic when he hears one, but takes the cigarette anyway. And immediately coughs, because Rick robs his dad’s Richmonds, which are dog rough.

“What’ll your dad say, you being out this late?”

“He doesn’t mind stuff like this. ‘Boys will be boys’ and all that shit. Told my mum off for worrying last time. ‘He’s old enough and big enough to look after himself, so stop mollycoddling the lad or he’ll end up as soft as …’” Rick’s voice trails off.

“‘As that Walker boy he knocks around with’,” Kieren finishes for him.

“Fucksake Ren, I don’t care what he thinks. There’s nothing wrong with you. Except the ginger thing. And some dye would sort that.”

Kieren laughs. “Twat. I don’t know why I put up with you.”

“My charm and access to strong drink.”

“That’ll be it.”

“You’re my best friend.”

“I know.”

“You’ll always be my best friend.” It’s meant to be a statement, but there’s an upward tilt in Rick’s voice that makes him sound uncertain. “Even when you fuck off to uni and leave me behind.”

“Rick, I …”

“It’s okay, Ren. You can’t stay here forever. You’ll come home for the holidays and I’ll be here.”

“You could come, you know.”

“Maybe. Don’t agree to anything you might regret when we’re sober. Now c’mon, softlad, let’s get you home.”

 

Rick walks him all the way back home, and when they stop outside Kieren’s door he pauses and just looks Kieren over. Kieren fights the urge to fidget and looks right back.

“’Night ’night, Ren. Sleep tight,” Rick says, finally, and slaps him gently on the side of his face.

“’Night, dickhead,” Kieren says, and turns away to open his front door.

“Wait,” Rick says. He pulls Kieren back towards him and into a hug. Rick’s neck is warm when Kieren tucks his face there. He wants … he wants so much. Kieren wants to kiss Rick’s neck, the hinge of his jaw, the hollow of his throat. He sighs.

When Rick steps back out of the hug his hands reach up and hold each side of Kieren’s face with careful pressure. His eyes meet with Kieren’s, then dart down to his lips. Rick kisses Kieren on the corner of his mouth, just a brush of chapped lips. “This is okay, right?” Rick asks.

Kieren nods. His head is empty of words, and his mouth seems to have forgotten that it has any purpose other than to be kissed. He pushes forward and licks into Rick’s mouth, his hands gripping Rick’s shirt. Kieren nudges Rick back against the door, pressing himself into Rick’s solid weight. Rick’s hands roam across Kieren’s body: his nape, his back, his waist. When Kieren nips at his bottom lip he can feel Rick’s breath hitch and his hands grasp on Kieren’s arse. 

“Fuck,” Rick hisses, “we should- we can’t-” and pushes Kieren away. Kieren makes a broken, embarrassing noise.

“I need to get home, it’ll be daylight soon,” Rick says. He rubs his hand against the back of his neck, and his eyes won’t quite meet Kieren’s. “I’ll see you tomorrow. We could go up to the cave?”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Tomorrow then.”

Rick makes an abortive move back towards Kieren and then stops. He turns away to walk down the drive, shoulders hunched up against the cold. He doesn’t look back.

He’s still wearing Kieren’s jacket. 

 

Later, in bed, Kieren finds his fingers mindlessly brushing his mouth. The stink of cigarette smoke has stuck to them. He wants to know what Rick is doing now, if he’s laid awake wondering when they’ll kiss again or regretting everything. Most likely he’s sleeping the deep dreamless sleep of the drunk.

Tomorrow, Kieren decides. They’ll talk about it tomorrow. They’ve got time.

**Author's Note:**

> Sass – half lager, half cider with a splash of blackcurrant (aka snakebite and black or diesel).
> 
> A save – the second half of a cigarette when shared between two people.
> 
> I'm dearheartdontstopfighting on tumblr. Come say hello.


End file.
